Bitcoin Forum

How do you guys spend your altcoins in real life? I’ve been looking into different options, but most of them seem to work only for big coins or large amounts. For smaller ones, I found things like gift cards and prepaid cards. Has anyone tried those? Can you recommend any reliable sites or platforms?

I wish all the best finding the right place to use tokens.

Mostly what is meant by real life amounts to fiat life. :)

So I suspect most of us spend a lot on fiat, because fiat is still usually more-spendable on most parts of this planet.

So it probably mostly comes down to where do we buy fiat?

Often fiat is not directly buyable in most places with our altcoins, but there are more and more altcoins one can buy fiat directly with, and still so far as far as I am aware bitcoin is even more widely accepted as something to buy fiat with than any of the altcoins, though the so-called "stable coins" based on fiat might be starting to eat into that.

So it goes back another step: for most alts we need to find places where we can buy bitcoin with them first, or buy with them some other alt we can buy fiat with somewhere.

So I suspect for most alts where we guys spend them is wherever we can buy bitcoin with them and where we can buy something other than bitcoin to buy fiat with...

There likely is still some attempt by some alts to set up businesses selling something other than bitcoin, other alts and fiat for them but mostly not I think.


-MarkM-

Honestly, I usually spend my altcoins on gift cards and prepaid cards because they’re pretty convenient for everyday stuff. I’ve bought gift cards for Amazon, Starbucks, and even some gaming platforms using services

For smaller amounts, this really makes it easy without having to convert everything back to big coins or fiat. Sometimes I also use crypto debit cards when I’m traveling or just out and about - it’s nice to just swipe and not worry about cash. It’s not perfect, but these options work well for me and keep things simple.

- Buying services
- Buying tickets
- Paying salary

For big alt, pretty easy. Just use crypto debit card, we're at neobank narrative right now and there are many self custody wallets that integrate debit card and allow spending using altcoin.

As for smaller altcoin, I don't really know. I just think that they're not meant for spending and instead for speculation, if you want to spend you convert it back to the likes of ETH or SOL. The swapping took seconds anyway.

I have spent bitcoin for my purchase online but that was a long time ago. And for altcoins, I think that there are only few ways of spending it. Like those that you've mentioned of using it for gift cards and then having a merchant that's partnered with a third party like bitpay and it's on them that will convert that altcoin for fiat. It gives the option to their customers to pay in altcoins and the other ones, the usual selling of it for fiat and then we'd do the traditional purchase.

Never tried this site but care to do some research to see if you can really use those alts in this site https://www.bitrefill.com/us/en/

If you also want to travel here https://www.travala.com/

But for me? I choose to convert my alts to fiat then use it to those things I want, rather than paying crypto online. Also don't want to spend my BTC since this is for holdings, but everything will really depends on what you prefer so do more research about these suggested platforms to gather more information about what they can offer.

To me as a bigginer my concentration is not where or how to spend my altcoins or Bitcoin,what am concentrating now is how to be a greater person on the forum when the time comes for me to spend my altcoins,we have Blords here it can be channels to them they will definitely look into it ,but your major concern should be how we can grow

I don't? Alts are not things that I like to spend, I even rarely spend bitcoin but that is at least something I have done, but usually USDT is the thing that I spend the most because most places accept that and I would say stablecoins are the easiest way of making some money from it.

I understand it may not be easy to handle but that is not going to be that bad, we can still make it work. Focus on what is real for you and we can see alts as just pure investments. If we only invest then we are not going to be bothered by it and we can do a fine job of it as well. Most people do not realize that part of the discussion, it's an asset and not something to spend. While most of us only invest on it, some still think that alts have any value on spending to some people.

Reading your post made me smile a little because you are wishing everyone well.
it is difficult to find the right place to use tokens.
I'm not very interested in using Bitcoin and use USD the most.

You dont understand how much that means to put a smile on your face because I bet you don’t do that often enough. The thing is even the smallest smile can change your world.

Except for few stablecoins, would you please mention stores where altcoins are spendable tu buy those kinds of stuff? I didn't ever heard about somewhere salaries can be paid using altcoins including major altcoins like ether or ripple or even the most famous meme Dogecoin.

@OP The most accurate answer is that you can use your altcoins in all crypto service platforms. I can suggest you use them for trading in exchange platforms where you have a chance to earn by staking, or use them to play in crypto-based casinos if you are fan of gambling.

Everyone who buys altcoins is doing it to make a profit not to spend them (they sell instead) and rarely you find someone who wants to spend them. Not to mention that majority of altcoins are not created to be used, they are gambling games where people bet on their prices hoping to "win" and make profit.

This is the reason why the adoption of altcoins as a means of payment is practically non existent. So even if you wanted to spend them, your options are going to be extremely limited.

The actual fact is that alt coin are not mostly used to make payments since they are not that reliable like Bitcoin, what I do and I also believe that a few other people do is trading their alt coin in exchange for usdt, and after that, they sells it in the p2p market or making a direct withdrawal from the exchange if their country supports a direct withdrawal method, but for alt coin used as means of payment? No.
They are too volatile in nature, that's why they will never be considered when trying to make payments on trades.

Thank you for your replies! Since I've posted this, I tried 3 gift card merchants, here are my top 3 if you are interested:

Cardstorm.io - best support
Bitrefill.com - best ux
coinsbee.com - has bybit pay

I think, it's a difficult bruh. It feels like most places only take Btc or Eth maybe. For you oppinion like another altcoin, it's a difficult to find it.

It's only a few altcoins that are being accepted in some platforms like online casinos and online shops but the rest can only be spent if you convert them to fiat, only on the respective exchange the coin is being traded.

Dear CoinAge.Cash, I didn't say anything to mock you, I just said it. Yes, you are right, a little laughter can make many impossible things possible.

In my country you just going to find it difficult to spend crypto. Have heard about just two businesses that accept bitcoin as payment method, but I don’t know if they still accepting bitcoin up till date. It’s difficult to see places that accept bitcoin as payment method, so you should just know that it’s going to be impossible to see a place that will accept altcoins.

I haven’t made any payment with bitcoin before, just because business owners still prefer to receive their payment with fiat currency, so even if am holding bitcoin and I want to get something, I will have to convert the bitcoin to fiat currency before I will be able to make use of it. So I don’t think am even going to be using altcoins to make payment soon, and am not also a altcoin fans, I don’t always encourage people to invest in altcoins.

I don't only fiat.

If it's for gift cards or prepaid, it's better to use a stable or fiat. Also, it's hard to use crypto especially in my country, we adapt it as investment assets but as a utility coin for transactions, it's very rare. I can't see the vision that I'm using alts or any crypto for a small amount payment, it's not efficient and hassle on our side, not very practical. I think for big purchases, it's pretty useful but like what I've said, rare scenarios only.

Yes, its because most of he altcoins doesn't have real life use case, but instead most of them are being used for pump and dump scheme. Even the US president is making a billion dollar profit out of it.

And it only means that you can spend it by just exchanging them to fiat and use it as sound money. As compare to Bitcoin who became the number asset right now. It could be purely for speculative, but at least it's not like your investment is going to lose it's value overnight.

Simple but interesting, and I think there are many options, considering the title of the OP's post above, as well as the topic "How do you guys spend your altcoins in real life?" It's not difficult to circumvent; the key is in your wallet, where the asset is on standby. Storing fiat currency only provides security, but doesn't provide a significant return on its value.

If we don't want to convert it to fiat currency, we can convert it to other investment portfolios, such as gold, property, or others. Another option, if we're still in the crypto market, is to diversify. If there's a profit, we can move to good altcoins like ETH, Ripple, Binance, and many others. We don't need to worry about these coins, because as major altcoins, they have performed well in the market.

Oh I knew you meant well brother just do that more often, 😃.

It's hard enough to find places where you can spend your Bitcoin as currency, now imagine how harder it is to spend altcoins. For most altcoins, you can't use them as currency in anywhere, because nobody is willing to accept them as payment. Besides speculation, there is little purpose for those tokens to exist, what means they also come followed by huge risks and volatility, so merchants definitely won't wish to hold them, especially for long periods of time.

Actually, it shouldn't be a surprise, because even altcoins investors don't acquire the tokens aiming to use them as currency any time soon.

Lol, there are a lot of mediums you can use to exchange it to real USDT or money, so no stress on finding places, even thinking if I later get a good reward on my trading competition phase 14 that i am currently among the traders topping the leaderboard, i will use the reward touch some grass small (meaning use it to enjoy). This was my last reward on phase 13, wish me luck.

https://i.ibb.co/WWWYbf2p/1280-X1280-2025-10-25-T214447-998.png (https://ibb.co/N66H8Kyn)

Unfortunately, finding a platform is very rare; the smaller or unpopular altcoins should set up their own to gain usage. The very high volatility of unpopular altcoins makes it infeasible to list them on a popular marketplace.

Usage and the marketplace are reserved for popular altcoins; your best option is to trade them for popular altcoins to gain usage. The unpopular altcoins should first gain enough popularity to attract the marketplace's attention and be included on their platform.

In my personal experience or in what's currently happening in my life, I don't literally use cryptocurrency in my day-to-day activities. The only way cryptocurrency helps me
is that when I make a profit, I convert it into our local fiat currency that's it.

But as for actually using it as a mode of payment at merchants who accept cryptocurrency or Bitcoin, I haven't experienced that yet. I'm just not sure about it,
even though I've already been in the crypto industry for a long time now.

No one will accept altcoins as means of payment, Bitcoin is still struggling to become a means of payment acceptable by merchants around the world and you are talking about altcoins? The only place this can happen is on online casinos and that's even some selected numbers of altcoins, we won't see this happen any time soon but it is possible ln the future, just don't expect all altcoins to be acceptable, many of them are shit coins.

I usually "turn" them into gift cards to buy the stuff I need. Retailers such as Bitrefill and eGifter sell a variety of gift cards, often accepting multiple cryptocurrencies as payment method. If I can't find a gift card for a store/merchant of my choice, I simply choose a virtual VISA or mastercard to shop online. eGifter sells those, as well as, Coinsbee.

For physical stores, I often choose a virtual VISA/mastercard and use that to buy a physical card (either VISA's "Vanilla" Gift Card or Mastercard's version). You can spend altcoins on almost anything, except for paying your bills and investing in real estate (buying a property). Crypto is becoming more popular each day, so it's likely we'll be able to avoid Fiat entirely in the future. At least, things are better now than what they were in the early days.

Yes, and perhaps some of us don't know or are just realizing that altcoins is also accepted in some places, such as eGifter and Coinsbee, although currently it's still in gift card form.

The whole world should now understand how beneficial cryptocurrency is in many areas. This isn't just about investing, but also about humanity. Banks and other traditional financial markets should no longer dismiss Bitcoin and cryptocurrency as a threat.

If this becomes commonplace, I'm sure many others will follow this social movement, and more developers will try to promote their projects in parallel. Eventually, the wise answer will naturally emerge: "How do you spend your crypto in the real world?" if anyone asks again.

Exactly, this is the real reason why spending altcoin is difficult.

It will be great to have services that swap altcoins to the coin they accept automatically so even if we are holding shitcoin , they can just swap it but business aren't risking their money with the slippage since shitcoin being shitcoin definitely have low liquidity.

Spending altcoins in real life is difficult to do. And people's trust in accepting altcoins as payment is still very low. We can still find people who accept payments using Bitcoin. But payments using altcoins are very rare or even non-existent in certain areas. Other than that we find payments using altcoins more often online than in real life. And even then the changes can occur at any time, where certain altcoins are no longer available as payment due to several possibilities. So I think payments using altcoins are difficult to realize and even the father of doge coin (Source (https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/17241265982705)) limits the use of a altcoin payments for product payments in his company (Source (https://www.tesla.com/support/dogecoin)). Perhaps the reason is the high risk or even it might be the trust in altcoins for the long term is still relatively low.

Buying gift cards with altcoins in not a wise choice because there are many limitations to this

1) Most of the platforms will charge extra fees.

2) There can be price volatility resulting in more loss.

3) Some of the platforms might need KYC which will result in privacy exposure.

I have never spent altcoin before but if I have the chances one day, I will try it. The reason is that I don’t know where to spend it. So, if I have to buy something or do any shopping with it, I would convert it to dollars or possibly my local fiat currency.As for altcoins, they are not that reliable for pump and dump schemes or similar things. Many people don’t feel comfortable accepting altcoins unless the altcoin has already gained a good reputation in the crypto industry. Most people feel that instead of using altcoins for shopping or spending, they prefer Bitcoin.

Personally, if you ask me, I spend the altcoins on the gambling sites. There we also have only the option to spend a few altcoins like Litecoin, Dogecoin, trx and a few others. Other than that, I don't see where I can spend my altcoins. For gift cards and other online shopping, I prefer to spend stable coins like USDT or UCDC as its easy to calculate how much I am spending and there is no fluctuating in price.

Yeah, i do buy altcoins on exchanges with my USDT and trade with them, but there is no other use case of altcoins for me else to increase my USDT through trading.

I don't?

Bitcoin is the most adopted crypto alongside stablecoins and somehow it's not so straightforward to spend it in real life and now you talk about alts? I think the only way alts can be spent efficiently is if you're using a crypto card that allows one to conveniently pay for all IRL stuff as long as the alts in question can easily be convertible and is liquid enough to be converted to USD at checkout time.  Because AFAIK, I haven't gone to a shop anywhere and they offer me to pay with like ETH or Solana tokens? I don't think so. Maybe it's just my country where services like that aren't available.

smaller altcoins usually don’t have enough demand or liquidity to be accepted directly for payments some merchants and platforms prefer stable or popular coins because of easier conversion and lower risk!! but one smart workaround is using crypto debit cards or gift card services that accept swaps. you can convert your small altcoins to something like USDT, BTC or ETH first then spend through those cards. it is an extra step but it gives you flexibility

What you're saying is correct, man. And in my opinion, many people are probably doing what you're talking about, and honestly, I'm one of them too,
and that method is effective. Not all of the cryptocurrency I earn is converted to our fiat currency.

Because some of the crypto earnings I get from my trading activities I also use to buy other good altcoins, and others I use for DCA (Dollar-Cost Averaging) into potential altcoins
that can give me a good ROI in the future."

Let's assume that the one pointed out by OP are the big alts. Since there's provably some merchant near us accept those top alts. But in my case I really don't bother to use it directly since I really think its hassle to go to those merchant just to pay the alts we have.

That's why I always choose to use fiat on any offline transactions. Then always use my few top alts for investment purposes since its good to have standby funds so that we can use it on some things that can possibly generate us more profits.

Yes, most small altcoins lack market demand with low liquidity, making it difficult to be listed on popular markets because they are still considered to have a large impact on losses. Of course, many traders and platforms focus more on altcoins that have a wide network with a small risk of loss.
A fairly wise suggestion is to convert small altcoins into something like USDT, BTC, or ETH, which can give us good flexibility and avoid high risks rather than spending on smaller Altcoins.

I have not seen where altcoins are used to make payments for buying and selling, majority of them don't have any use case, they are there mostly as tokens to be swapped for popular cryptos. Altcoins are mostly relevant in exchanges where you can trade them to Bitcoin or the most popular than is not volatile being stablecoins. If you want to spend your altcoins it won't be directly, like you said what is popular is to trade it to stablecoins USDT in a CEX then do the exchange p2p transactions with a marchant who will pay fiat into your bank account.

Most people don't think about spending their crypto. They just want to hoard it with the hopes of making a quick buck. It's that reason why the number of merchants, businesses and/or retailers accepting crypto as payment method is limited. Altcoins are even worse than Bitcoin in terms of merchant acceptance. You're better off exchanging them for Fiat to be able to buy the things you want. Or use them to pay off debts and whatnot.

Until crypto becomes stable enough to be used as digital cash (sort of), don't expect merchant adoption to rise anytime soon. At least, it's better something than nothing. Right?

Common and top level coins like ETH, BNB, SOL are very easy to use, you can reload them with a crypto debit card. But this is not possible with normal coins. In that case, you have to sell those coins and use stable coins or convert them to coins that have the option to reload on crypto debit cards and then use them. Not all altcoins in the market are good, that's why only some strong coins are accepted and provided by various companies to reload them on debit cards and use them.

Still there are a number of merchants accepting cryptos as a valid payment source. This is not what we all want though. We still want to hold cryptos to make profits in the future and than we can always cash-out to make real purchases. Altcoins are best when they are treated as an investment tool. I would personally just keep on holding my altcoins instead of spending them for any purchases.

The profits I make out of altcoins can be utilized to make such purchases but even that will come when I convert profits into fiat. Fiat is the best tool when it comes to buying such services or products. We always have option to use fiat, as they are meant to be used for such purposes while cryptos are meant for investment.

If you want real-world use than you will have to choose a alt which has their own platform where you can simply use tools like converting alts to gift cards or even mobile recharges. Most of the alts have different use cases.

The most common use case will be to treat them as an investment tool rather than using them as a real-world usage. For real-world usage, you always have fiat which you can rely on. Altcoins are best when they are used as an investment tool as they can give us really good profits and these profits can than be used to purchase other things like gift cards.

If I may ask, why are you looking to spend your alts instead of holding them? Do you have a lot of alts in your bag and just want to get rid of those or is there any other reason?

Those are established altcoins that can easily be exchanged for fiat or used directly to pay for goods and services to merchants that accept them. They are all accepted for deposit into casinos which is where I spend a good portion of my altcoins as my holding is mostly bitcoin which altcoins are used for other purposes since some of them have cheaper transactions fees and take less time for confirmation.

Altcoins is been spent in real life the way bitcoin is been spent in real life....before you spend bitcoin it most undergoes through conversions, from cryptocurrency to fiat currency though an exchange p2p....so before Altcoins can be spent to real life it will be converted to the available token or cryptocurrency that is convertible to fiat currency...so theirs no currency that can be spent without undergoing conversion.

This is a good question to ask since most altcoins in the market have a use case(utility) they are known for or are being created for.

Unfortunately, our thoughts don't usually go there, if not for profits we keep thinking of(to sell for fiat). The coin now reacts to its supply and demand. That ends what we can use the altcoin for, nothing again.

I know that there is something,  somewhere we can use the altcoin we have for. Not only to invest and sell for profits as the target has been for long.

I have never spent my alts in real life. I don't know why, my Sol rises and falls back without me taking profits. Although alts for a very small percentage of my portfolio. I will have to figure out how to sell them or wait for another pump and sell all of them off.
I have shiba that I have been holding since 2021 it crashed on me, it's time to let it go and sell a couple of other alts that I have. Them distractions to me as I seem not to remember that I have a few of them. My mindset has been on BTC and BTC alone.

The gift card approach is solid. I've had good luck with Visa prepaid cards that accept crypto directly. The fees are a bit steep though - usually around 2-3% depending on the provider.

One thing nobody mentions is just HOLDing most altcoins and only selling what you actually need to spend. The volatility makes it almost impossible to time spending anyway. I found it easier to just keep my alts locked up and use my stablecoins or fiat when I need to buy something.